Unlocking the Mysteries of Genesis*: Part 1

1. Unlocking the Mysteries of Genesis*: Part 1 (*DVD series by The Institute for Creation Research (ICR)) Mark Jurkovich Centerville Community Church March 2019

2. Does the Bible claim to be the Word of God? • 2 Timothy 3:16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, • 2 Pet 1:21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. • Numbers 23:19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? • Proverbs 30:5-6"Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar. • Psalm 19: 7The law (Torah) of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul Bible verses will be either NIV or KJV unless noted

3. Bible Verses (con.) • Heb 10:23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. • 2 Corinthians 1:20For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. • Romans 15:4For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. • Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

4. Fiction or Non-fiction? • First, can we even be sure that what we have today is what the authors originally wrote? • Ex. Islam teaches the Bible has been corrupted over the years (deliberately even) • Liberal theologians the past couple hundred years have sought to discern “what Jesus really said” vs. what was attributed to Jesus years later.

5. Objection 1: wasn’t the New Testament written down 100 or more years after the events occurred? Truth - Time span: • The N.T. was written within 70 years (most books within 30) years of the death of Christ (AD 30). Evidence: 1. Early church fathers (Clement, Ignatius) were quoting many of the N.T. books by around AD 100. The books that were quoted had to be in circulation at that time. 2. There is no hint that the N.T. writers knew of the destruction of the temple (AD 70) as a fact that had already happened. 3. According to history, PAUL died in the AD mid-60’s. At the end of Acts he is still alive. Therefore, Acts and the books Paul wrote most likely were written by the mid-60s. Luke wrote the book of Luke before he wrote the sequel, Acts. So the book of Luke is even earlier. • Conclusion: There was not time for distortions to grow up around the life of Christ.

6. Objection 2: But we do not have the original writings. Couldn’t they have been corrupted or embellished with each new copy? (all copied one at a time by hand after all) Truth - Time span, part 2 • The time span (between the originals and the earliest existing copies) for most classical Greek works is about 1,000 years; • the time span for most books in the N.T. is around 90 years. • Again the time is too short for the NT to have been corrupted Author/Work Time span Aristotle 1,400 yrs. Caesar (Gallic Wars) 950 yrs. Odyssey 500 yrs. Livy (hist. of Rome) 400 yrs. New Testament 90 yrs.

7. More on time span Manuscripts have been found that date within or close to the first century: • One Example: John Ryland Papyrus (dated AD 125 ; fragment of John found in Egypt). The original manuscript must have been written earlier.

8. “Beans” Click the following link to view video https://arkencounter.com/bible-true/beans/

9. Objection 3: “Too few manuscripts?” Truth - Number • The more manuscripts we have for comparison, the closer we can get to the original manuscript reading. • Plus tens of thousands of quotations from the N.T. by the early church fathers. It would be possible to construct the whole of the New Testament, apart from about eleven verses, from these writings alone. 5,700—Greek 10,000—Latin 9,300—other languages (ex.Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Coptic, Gothic)

10. Comparison to numbers of other writings • The quantity of manuscripts of classical Greek and Roman literature is very small. The piece of ancient literature (besides the Bible) with the greatest quantity of existing manuscripts is Homer’s Iliad (643 copies). The manuscript evidence for the N.T. is far superior to the manuscript evidence of classical Greek and Roman literature! • “The number of manuscripts of the N.T., or early translations from it in the oldest writers of the church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world” (Frederick Kenyon, renowned paleographer and textual critic). Author/Work # of Copies Plato 7 Caesar 10 Tacitus 20 Homer 643 New Testament 5,700 (Greek)

11. Summary comparison Courtesy of - http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_studies/new_testament/bibliographical.html

12. Objection 4: there are so many discrepancies between the manuscripts that we still cannot know which is the original Truth - Quality • The 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad are 95% pure which works out to be over 700 lines in question. • The 25,000+ N.T. manuscripts are 99.5% pure! • Ex. Romans 5:1 Paul says,"Therefore, since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Some of the manuscripts have "we have peace with God." However, others have "let us have peace with God." In the Greek text it is merely the difference of one letter that changes the tense of the verb. • One thing is certain - no variant readings are significant enough to call in question any of its doctrines. • “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential error* from generation to generation throughout the centuries” (Frederick Kenyon). [*missing actual word from original quote]

13. Old Testament Text • Jews working in the eighth and ninth centuries who were known as Masoretes, assembled the best Hebrew texts of the Old Testament available at the time and sought to preserve their purity. They gave us what is known as the Masoretic text. • 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls: • 40,000 inscribed fragments recovered, • over 500 books have been identified. • About 100 of these are copies of the 39 books of the Old Testament. (Only Esther is not represented among them.) • Many of these writings pre-date the community. For example, a text of Exodus has been dated about 250 BC. • The RSV Bible “..proved to be word for word identical...in more than 95% of the text. The 5% variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.” (Gleason Archer, A Survey of the Old Testament) • Example Isaiah 53 – only one word different and it made no change to the sense of the passage. • Whole of Isaiah has only 13 minor changes between scrolls and the 1952 RSV Bible. (Psalm 19)

14. Evidence the Bible is God’s Word

15. Word of God demonstrated by the fulfillment of prophesy Prophecy Fulfillment by Jesus the Messiah • Tribe of Judah: Genesis 49:10 - Luke 3:23, 33 • House of David: Jeremiah 23:5 - Luke 3:23, 31 • Enter Jerusalem on a donkey: Zechariah 9:9 - Matt. 21:1–8 • Born at Bethlehem: Micah 5:2 - Matt 2:1 • Introduced by a messenger: Isaiah 40:3 - Matt. 3:1–3 • Body pierced in crucifixion: Zechariah 12:10 - John 19:34 • Laid to rest with the rich: Isaiah 53:9 - Matt. 27:57–60 • Endure wounds and bruises: Isaiah 53:5 - Matt. 27:26 • Teaching and healing ministry: • Isaiah 61:1, 2; 32:3–4; 35:5 - Matt. 9:35; Luke 4:17–21 • Arrive before the Temple and Jerusalem destroyed: • Daniel 9:26 - Temple, Jerusalem destroyed AD 70 • Labeled Lord and God: Jeremiah 23:6, Isaiah 9:6 - John 20:28, Luke 2:11 • Killed 483 years after decree to rebuild Jerusalem: • Daniel 9:25–26 - Gospels, history (Christ died about AD 30) • Silent before accusers: Isaiah 53:7 - Matt. 27:12

16. What Is the Probability that Jesus Fulfilled Those Prophecies by Chance? • The odds of one man fulfilling just 7 of these prophesies was computed to be 1 in 1038 ! • Fulfilling 48 of them is an unfathomable 1 in 10157! • There are ‘only’ 1080 particles in the whole universe • Anything higher than 1 in 1050 is considered mathematically impossible; i.e. a miracle, or the work of Almighty God • More complete list of messianic prophesies fulfilled in Jesus can be found at: http://christiananswers.net/dictionary/messianicprophecies.html

17. Summary • The Bible is by far the most well documented piece of literature of all writings from it’s time. • Written in first generation of Jesus’ resurrection • Oldest copies from within 100 years of writing • Many more manuscripts than any other writing of the era • Manuscripts 99.5% pure, no doctrines affected by variants • Shown as God’s word in the fulfilled messianic prophesies alone • 66 books written by several dozen authors over about a 2000 year time span telling one consistent message of God’s redemption story for man.

18. Unlocking the Mysteries of Genesis • Topics to be covered from a Biblical perspective • Biology • Geology • Paleontology (dinosaurs) • Astronomy • Archaeology • Origins

19. Unlocking the Mysteries of Genesis: Part 1 • Design or Random Chance? • All life cries out “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made!” (Ps. 139:14) • Elephant’s trunk • Mimic octopus: mimics at least 15 other creatures • Beauty everywhere (only limited cases can be accounted for by ‘attracting a mate’) • Adaptation has severe limits • Evolution cannot explain origin of male and female • Not one undisputed transitional form

20. Occam’s Razor • “The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct” • Example: heliocentric versus geocentric Copernicus’ heliocentric Ptolemy’s geocentric https://creation.com/galileo-church

21. Scripture in Session1 • Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. • Genesis 1 • Isaiah 14:24 The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.

22. Psalm 104:24 How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures • Proverbs 3:19 By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; • Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

23. References • “The accuracy of modern New Testament translations.” https://bible.org/article/how-accurate-bible • “The Bible: An Extra Terrestrial Message”, Chuck Missler, Koinonia House, 1996 • http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_studies/new_testament/bibliographical.html • http://www.messianic-prophecy.net/Messianic-Prophecy.htm • Some more information on the Dead Sea Scrolls • https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/ • https://christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a023.html • https://probe.org/the-dead-sea-scrolls/ • Background image courtesy of AIG: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/overheads/TOC.asp

24. Backup info Veracity of the Biblical Text How we know that what we have today is what the authors wrote

25. The Bibliographical Test • The Bibliographical test evaluates the reliability of manuscripts, • looking at the time elapsed between original and existing manuscripts, • Time between events and when written down • Time between written down and oldest copies still existing • number of manuscripts, • and discrepancies (how much variation between the readings of the existing manuscripts). • This test determines how well a document has been preserved since it was written. This test will determine whether or not we have what was originally written.